Monday 1st June

Good morning Ash class and welcome back to your final term at West Malling!

This term is going to be a little different as some of you will be back in school learning and some of you will be continuing your learning at home.

I am going to try to keep all your learning the same whether you are at school or at home so if you are learning at home, you won't have a weekly enquiry question each week but will have different lessons and resources uploaded on here most days.  These will include maths lessons using the Power Maths resources, English lessons, science and some transition work to help you prepare for your onward journey to secondary school.  There will also be work set on Mathletics and reading on Bug Club - so plenty to keep you busy!

As we go through the term, there will be some additional tasks that we will do in school that we would also like you to do if you are at home and then send in to us so that we can prepare some work together - but more about this later.

Below are the sub-pages where you will find work for different areas of the curriculum which will be added to throughout the week.  I will move this so that in future it is at the top of the page.

In maths we will be doing some more in depth work on area, perimeter and volume.  Currently there are Power Maths text book resources for five lessons and I will add the practise book pages to this during the day so that you can practise what you have learnt. I will also find a way to add the answers so that you can mark your work.

English for this week is writing poetry and if you click on the English sub-page you will find instructions on what to do.  Please email this work to me by 3pm on Friday 5th June.

Our science topic this term is Animals including Humans - resources and tasks for this and for transition work will be added during the week so please keep a look out for it.

If you have any questions, don't forget to email me at

ashteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk

and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Saturday 23rd May

Well done for all the excellent work completed this week!

Friday 22nd May

Good morning Ash, well we've almost made it to half term - and what an amazing term of learning it has been!  We have seen so many of you really living out our school values, showing love, compassion and forgiveness to one another, trust in one another, perseverance with your learning and hope for the future - you really have been letting your lights shine.  You are all super stars and we are all so proud of you!

Ash Learner of the Week

A huge well done to Emily for being our Learner of the Week - check out the special message below... 

As it is the last day of term, if you still have some Mathletics tasks to complete then I haven't set you any more today.  Those of you who are up-to-date will just have a couple more tasks to finish today then you can have a whole week off!  If you still have a few to do, please try to use this time to 'catch up' and try to get all your tasks finished before the beginning of next term.

I have only had a few Viking diary entries so far this week so I am expecting a flood of them by 5pm this evening at which time I will be able to post some more examples of your amazing work on here for all to see!

That only leaves me now to say, have a great half term, enjoy the good weather, keep safe and hopefully we will be able to see some of you next term 

Over half term, we thought some of you might like to get creative by entering this amazing creative writing and drawing competition from the author,

Luke Temple.

If you follow the link below, you will have access to 'Luke Temple's Writing Toolbox' which contains lots of the tools that he uses to help make his books really exciting, fun and scary to read.

Even if you decide not to enter, you can still download a copy of his most popular book, Felix Dashwood and the Mutating Mansion, completely free!

The book and activity pack can be downloaded using the link below.

Monday 18th May

Good Morning Ash

To all of you who sent in your speeches - THANK YOU! We were almost speechless with how good they were - well done, we are super proud of all of you.

We are now into our final week of home learning before a well earned break at half term.  Please continue to keep up with your daily Mathletics tasks and if you haven't logged on to BUG CLUB for a while, maybe this week you could give it another go.

This week's writing task is all about the daily lives of the Vikings - how did they live and work?  Once you have researched (there are links on the home learning document to help you), you need to become a Viking for the day!  What job did you do as a Viking, where and how did you live?  If you feel that dressing up would help you get into character, then go ahead and do it!  Your writing task is to write a diary in role as a Viking - we want to hear all about your life.  If you take any photos then it would be great to see those too.

Ash Learner of the Week

A huge well done to Blake for being our Learner of the Week - check out the special message below...

King Alfred's Speech

I know that not everyone has quite finished their speech writing yet but I just had to say how impressed I am with all those that I have received so far - well done for your research and the detail that you have included, well done for using so many motivational and persuasive techniques (for example, repetition, rhetorical questions and emotive vocabulary) and well done for some excellent presentation! Don't worry if your work isn't in yet, I can add more to the slide show over the next few days.

Monday 11th May 

Good morning Ash and welcome to another wonderful week of remote learning.  I hope you have all had a great weekend, enjoying some of the sunshine and celebrating VE day in style. 

You have all been very good at letting us know what extra things you are getting up to so Mrs Lofting, Mrs Babadi and I thought we would show you one or two things that we did this weekend.  As you will see from the photos, Mrs Lofting celebrated VE day eating cake in her front garden, Mrs Babadi has been practising her already excellent golfing skills and I finally ran out of excuses as to why (after 10 years of not cycling) I couldn't get on my bike!

Please send us more photos of what you have been doing and we will add them to the slide show below.

Monday 11th May Remote Learning

This week's enquiry question task is to find out:

How did Alfred the Great fight back against the Vikings?

For this task you are going to imagine that you are Alfred the Great faced with the Viking invasion - you need to write a motivational and persuasive speech to influence what your people think and do.

Think back to when we read Floodland and wrote motivational and persuasive speeches in the role of Dooby.  The three excellent speeches that we listened to were by Emmeline Pankhurst, Malala Yousafzai and Michelle Obama (her final speech).  If you get the chance, have another listen to these to remind yourself of the key features.

There is lots of additional help and support and links on the learning document below, along with a checklist similar to those that we use in school to help you.  Please read this carefully and get in touch at ashteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk if you have any questions.

Below is just a selection of the great letter writing that we received last week and we look forward to reading some more of your excellent writing this week.

Ash Learner of the Week

A huge well done to Gabriella for being our Learner of the Week - check out the special message from Mr Clark below...

Wednesday 6th May

Good evening Ash, I thought you might like to see some of the exciting activities that your friends have been up to over the last couple of weeks. 

If you would like one of your photos posted here in the

'What else have Ash been up to?'

section, send them to ashteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk and I can add them so that

even if we can't be together physically, at least we can have a small glimpse at some

of the things that our friends are up to.

Monday 4th May

Hello Ash!

Mrs Lofting, Mrs Babadi and I are all really missing seeing you all in school but here we are again for another week of home learning 

Make sure you take a look at some of the great work from last week (below) and we look forward to seeing some more excellent work this week.

This week's enquiry questions are:

Where did the Vikings settle in Britain?

and

What was their journey like?

Full details of the task are on the document below along with hints, tips and links to help you.  As always, if you have any questions about this, please email us at ashteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk any time and we will do our best to help you.

Mathletics

For those of you who have completed the tasks on properties of shape and angles, you will be working with units of measure this week as well as completing some problem solving activities.

Bug Club

Please continue to  work on your comprehension skills by completing tasks on Bug Club.  If you think you would like some new books to choose from, let me know and I will allocate you some different ones.

Times Tables Rockstars!

You may have read in the letter sent out on Friday, by Mr Clark, about our very exciting news - we have now subscribed to Times Tables Rockstars! Just log in to the website ( https://play.ttrockstars.com/auth/school/student/87520 ) with your Mathletics login details to begin rockin!

You  will be asked a variety of x and ÷ questions then you will be able to keep practising and be automatically moved on when you are ready. I will be looking online to see who has logged on and how you are getting on. This is extra to Mathletics so make sure you completed your assigned tasks first. I look forward to seeing you all rock!

Remote Learning Documents

Sunday 3rd May

Why and How did the Vikings Invade Britain?

Mrs Lofting, Mrs Babadi and I have been really interested in reading all your work this week.  We have been very impressed with you remembering to put dates and titles, sub-headings, check your spellings and read though your work to make sure that it makes sense.

Here are just a few of the great pieces of work that we received this week:

Ash Learner of the Week

A huge well done to Freddie for being our Learner of the Week - check out the special message from Mr Clark below...

Monday 27th April

Good morning Ash and welcome to another week of home learning.  I hope you've all had a good weekend and been able to get out into your gardens or for a walk or a bike ride and enjoy some of this lovely sunshine!

Maths - this week will continue with the topic of shape and position for those of you who still have a few tasks to finish off in this area.  The next tasks will all be to do with shape and angles - try to remember all we have learnt in class but if you get stuck, don't forget to email me at ashteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk and I will try to help as much as I can.

Bug Club - even if you are reading your own books, please remember to log on to Bug Club and complete some of the books as this will also help you to practise your comprehension skills.

Viking Task

 The enquiry question for this week is all about why the Vikings invaded Britain and how they did it.  Some of you may already have touched on this area with your extended learning from last week but remember this will need to be a piece of extended writing and a more detailed account of why and how.  You can find all the details of the question and some suggested links in the Remote Learning Documents section below. 

For those of you who are looking for some futher home schooling ideas please have a read of the Further Home-Schooling Opportunities document also below.

Sunday 26th April

Who Were the Vikings?

Wow Ash Class! You really excelled yourselves last week with the amount of amazing Viking work that I received - well done.

  Keep remembering all those little things we do in class that are so important when producing a final piece of work including, date, title (that explains what the work is about), proof reading, editing, improving, using different sentence openers, using conjunctions and checking spellings - to name just a few!

Below is just a selection of the work I received as I just couldn't include it all - take a look to see if some of yours is included this week.

Ash Learner of the Week

A huge well done to Ethan for being our Learner of the Week for last week - check out the special message from Mr Clark below...

Monday 20th April

Welcome back one and all, we hope you have all had a good weekend and are ready for your first enquiry question of term 5 and a new topic - which is ...

The Vikings and Their Impact on Britain!

Remember - your task is to research and produce a piece of work each week to a similar standard that would be expected as if you were in school.  This should include a date and title at the top of the page and a significant amount of writing.  All the extra information you need is in the question document itself below.  Mrs Lofting, Mrs Babadi and I are looking forward to receiving your work via the class email ( ashteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk ) by Friday 24th April at 5pm.  If you wish to send it before this date so we can give you feedback and a chance to edit and improve your work, then please do.

I have reset all the Mathletics tasks this morning as we are changing our maths focus to the Properties of Shapes and Position. This includes co-ordinates, rotations and transformations - you should all have 2, 3 or 4 new tasks set (depending on what you have already completed). Don't forget to watch the information section for each task (marked with an 'i') before having a go at the activity itself.  This will give you a little bit of teaching and should help you be even more successful when you tackle the questions.

Many of you are accessing Bug Club regularly (well done!) and I am keeping a check on what you are reading - please let me know if you need further books to choose from.

Thursday 16th April

Welcome Back to Term 5!

Mrs Lofting, Mrs Babadi and myself hope you have all had a good Easter and that you all continue to be safe and well.  What did you get up to over the Easter break?  If you can send us some photos, we can share them with your class mates on our web page.

This is not quite the Term 5 that we were anticipating but it is now time to get back to some learning in this very strange time we are living in.  We will set a new enquiry question on Monday (20th) which will be linked to our new history topic for this term - check back here on Monday to find out what this is all about!  For now, we will continue to set daily maths activities on Mathletics and everyone has a selection of books to read on Bug Club.  These are being monitored and updated on a daily basis so new books will be allocated as soon as each level is completed.

For those of you wishing to do a little extra, don't forget the packs of maths and SPaG activities that were handed out before school closed - if you have had a go at any of these, or are struggling with how to answer a question, let us know and we can try to explain and also send you the answer packs which have methods on them.

Finally, as you are 'living through history in the making'  you may wish to record your thoughts and ideas about this time.  If this is something you may be interested in doing, take a look at the 2020 Covid-19 time capsule sheets below - you could print these out or re-create something similar of your own at the back of your work book.

Remember to keep in touch using the ash email ashteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

April Fool!!

Hopefully by now you've realised that this is a completely silly invention that doesn't exist at all! Have a great Easter break everyone and stay in touch!

Wednesday 1st April

As we reach the end of Term 4, I would just like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone linked with Ash Class for all your hard work and effort during what has been an incredibly challenging time. We are all getting used to this new way of working, but many of you are completing Mathletics tasks, logging into Bug Club and tackling your enquiry questions as well as engaging in all sorts of other types of learning.

While Mathletics activities and enquiry questions will cease over the Easter holiday, please do keep the emails and photos of what you've been getting up to coming in. It's wonderful to see what you've all been doing. Of course, with no more activities being set, it might provide an opportunity for those of you who have got a bit behind with the tasks to catch up before Term 5 starts!

I hope you can manage to relax and enjoy Easter despite the difficult climate we are all currently living in.

Monday 30th March update

Morning everyone! Sorry - I've been told that this week's remote learning question isn't opening properly so I've deleted it from below and re-saved it as a PDF document. Hopefully this will open properly now!

Monday 30th March

Welcome to Week 2 of remote learning as we stay in our homes for a while longer! I hope you've all had a great weekend and that your families are all safe and well. 

This week Mathletics tasks will be assigned on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to take us to the end of what would have been Term 4. No tasks will be assigned over the Easter holidays, with them beginning again on Thursday 16th April.

The same is true with the enquiry questions. This week's (which has been posted below) will be the last until Monday 20th April. Please read the instructions for this week's task carefully, as it is a slightly different kind of question which will need you to do one or two things and then apply the knowledge you have gained from your learning about rivers.

Please take a photo of your completed work and email it to us at ashteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk along with any other comments or queries. It would be great to hear from you!

Friday 27th March

What a strange week it has been!

We have all missed seeing you every day so it has been lovely to receive so many emails with questions, with work attached and with good wishes.  We hope you are all keeping safe and well too.

Take a look at some of the home learning that was emailed in below - not all formats were compatible so if yours is not here then I apologise. (Photos seem to be one of the best options)

Friday 27th March

Did any of you join in with the applause for the NHS at 8:00pm last night? If you did, then well done. It was certainly very emotional and just a small way of saying thank you to those men and women who are doing so much to care for us at the moment.

A huge well done to Michael, Freddie, Ivo, Gabriella and Alice who have completed all the Mathletics tasks set so far. Gold stars all of you!! As the rest of the class still have work outstanding, no more activities have been assigned for this week. However, a fresh set will start again on Monday after the weekend.

Don't forget that your first piece of written work, describing and explaining the features of a river course, is due in today. You can email either the work itself, if you completed it electronically, or a photo of your written work to ashteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk

I look forward to seeing them all!

Wednesday 25th March

Hello everyone. I hope you're all safe and well and are managing to enjoy some quality time with your families. 

I can see that some of you have logged into Mathletics and had a go at tackling the tasks that are being set. Don't forget that these are being set daily and are all due in at the end of the week. It might be a good idea to try and do a little bit each day, rather than let it all build up and have lots to do at the end of the week! 

Don't forget to email us at ashteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk if you have any questions. We're all here to help if we can in these strange times!

Monday 23rd March

Mrs Lofting, Mrs Babadi and I hope you are all well and staying safe with your families. We are all having to get used to different ways of doing things at the moment - and school and learning is just one of those. ‘Remote learning’ is something that we can develop and get better at while school remains closed. I’m sure there will be problems along the way, but nothing that we can’t solve together.

A special email address has been set up (ashteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk) that you can contact us on. Mrs Lofting, Mrs Babadi and I all have access to this. The email will act a bit like a virtual classroom, so it would be lovely to hear from you. Of course you can ask us questions about the work you are doing, and we’ll do our best to help you, but it would be lovely just to hear what you’re up to and how you’re keeping yourselves busy!

There will be three different types of learning that are regularly updated and that we expect you to do. These are:

Mathletics

Tasks will be allocated each day (Monday to Friday) for you to do. These will begin with a focus on area, perimeter and volume. Don’t forget to click on the information icon (i) in the activities if you want some hints, tips and teaching to help you!

I will be keeping an eye on how you’re doing with the tasks. Please email us if you’re finding something particularly tricky and would like some advice.

Bug Club

You have all been allocated new books on Bug Club and should try to spend a little bit of time each day reading and answering the comprehension questions to check your understanding. Please make sure you email us if, after you’ve read a couple of the books, you’re finding them too easy or too difficult.

Of course, this time at home is an absolutely ideal time to get stuck into some books and really lose yourself in some amazing stories!

Writing Activity

Every Monday I will post an enquiry question here on our class page, linked to the history or geography theme we are studying. You will need to produce a piece of work to answer the question. This will need you to do some research, either using books or the internet, and then produce a finished piece of work to answer the question. There will always be some writing involved in this task, although you might also choose to do some art work or extra research to go with it and really challenge yourself as a learner.

Mrs Lyall

Quiz of the Week!

Even though we are living in uncertain times, we still managed to finish the week with a quiz.  Congratulations to our last (for the time being) Quiz of the Week champions - Team Alphaflair! (great name by the way )

After a very busy week of assessments and learning, in which the children of Ash class have excelled themselves, we ended today with a Quiz of the Week.

Congratulations to Team L.O.K.D. for being this week’s champions in a very closely fought competition - winning on a

tie-breaker question!

Learner of the Week

Congratulations to our Ash 

Learner of the Week - who is also the Ash Mathlete of the week!

The Great Potato Competition!
There were some excellent entries in the potato competition - who would be YOUR winner?

Great Home Learning!
Please have a look at some more of the great home learning that has been handed in this week. 

We have all been very impressed with the efforts that children and parents have gone to with their costumes. 
Well done!

Library Visit

After a very wet walk to the library, all the little monsters, aliens and children arrived safely. 

Book Week

We welcomed the author Ian MacDonald into school today. Ash class participated in a workshop learning how to write using techniques to create suspense. 

Mrs Lyall’s Quiz of the Week!
Another week, another quiz and another chance to be champions. 

Congratulations to this week’s champions with a great score of 23 out of a possible 34. 

Learner of the Week

Well done to everyone for an excellent first week back and congratulations to our first Learner of the Week for term 4. 

The Water Cycle

The children have been learning about the different stages of the water cycle in geography, as well as in English, in order to write the story of The Journey of a Water Droplet. They had fun imagining themselves as water drops and acting out the different stages. 

Home Learning

There were some very busy children, continuing their learning journey, during half term last week. Well done! 

Welcome back to Term 4!

This afternoon we welcomed the Kent Police Safer Cycling Team who spoke with the children about the importance of making sensible decisions and being safe on the roads. 

Mrs Lyall's Quiz of the Week!

This afternoon we found a bit of 'spare' time to take part in the first Quiz of the Week for this year. 

The proud winners of week one - looking very pleased with themselves with a great score of 14 out of 27 - just beating the girls (who scored 13) to the winning position!

🎉🎉🎉

A huge well done to our Ash Class 

Learner of the Term for term 3. 

Home Learning

Here are just a couple of examples of the excellent home learning received this week. 

Visit from the Magistrates 

We have had a very informative afternoon finding out about the British legal system and learning that our actions always have consequences. The children expressed themselves excellently and asked some very thoughtful questions. There were a few surprised and sometimes shocked faces on hearing some of the consequences of making a wrong choice! 

The children had a fun day yesterday dressed in their pyjamas all day - whilst remembering and raising money for the World Wildlife Fund to support koalas injured in the bushfires in Australia. 

What a productive week we have had in Ash class!

I have been so impressed with the children's writing in class this week which is linked to our new class book, Floodland, by Marcus Sedgwick. Even though we are only a short way in to it,  they are all really engaged and looking forward to hearing the next chapter.  

Well done to all those who have already handed in their first piece of home learning on our Rivers topic.  We have been very impressed with the creativity you have shown. If you are a bit stuck for ideas - here are a few examples. 

Just in case you have misplaced your home learning sheet, here are the activities you can choose from.